The Book of Harold

by Owen Egerton

  Finally they started to slip away. My mother-in-law took me aside as the crowd thinned out and told me I might have shaved for her daughter’s funeral. Then, as I palmed my stubble, she told me I was in no condition to care for a child so she would be taking Tammy home with her.

  When I opened my mouth to object, my voice sounded hoarse and childish. I looked at my hands. They were trembling.

  “But I would like her to stay here.”

  “That’s not enough of a reason to make a child live like this, Blake. Besides, all her clothes are already at my house.”

  “Is this what Tammy wants?”

  “Of course it is. But she’s too sweet a girl to let you know that.” She looked around to make sure she wasn’t overheard and whispered, “You know that Jennifer would agree. She did leave you.”

  And that was that. Goodbye, Tammy. Goody goody bye bye.

  Later I sat alone at the dinner table eating the last of the tiny sandwiches. The sun set and the room grew darker, but I had no reason to turn on any light. I leaned back and watched the world grow black and waited for the shadows. But that night there were no shadows.

  I had lost my wife, my daughter was gone, I had no job, no television, no next step . . . we thank you God for the gifts you bring.

  I Know

  My wife won’t visit the Mole Hole. She peeks in from the vent, but, no matter how much I beg, she refuses to come any closer.

  Hermit

  I lived alone for the next six weeks. My world was a rotten floor—I never knew if my next step would break through the boards and send me spiraling. That silence. That abyss. Not forward from silence or backward from silence, but downward into silence. The moments between lying down and falling asleep were the edge of a void. I could feel that cold blackness pulling me in.

  I have heard it said that a mourning spouse will be reminded of the lost love by the most trivial souvenir of their life together. A photo, a candlestick, or a bedside table will bring back too many memories. This didn’t happen to me. The furniture, the decorations, her clothes were all lies. They were masks and make-up. They begged to be mistaken for my wife. Maybe she would have joined their begging, but they were not her. I grew tired of their high-pitched squealing, so I burned them.

  My first bonfire was set up in the backyard. It was just a few clothes and the kitchen stools. But a policeman came by and told me I wasn’t allowed to have a bonfire without a permit. So I put the fire out and built another one inside. I used the couch. I piled on her old summer dresses and doused it with her perfume. I recognized the smell, and it whispered, “I am her.” But it wasn’t. So without hesitation I took her hairspray and aimed the spray through a lighter’s flame. The fire was huge, the flames licking the ceiling. The smell of her skin still clung to the bed sheets, they burned too. I added shoes and scarves and fashion magazines—each protesting that although the others had been imposters, it really was her. I burned them all and opened the windows so that not even the smoke would stay.

  I sat beside the fire watching the colors change in the twisting flames. The fire alarm went off, and I added it to the pile. Even with the windows open the room was full of smoke and the smell of melting plastic. The smoke was down in me. It was crawling through my eyes. The sand was now smoke, moving fast and drowning me all the same. And through the smoke, on the far side of the fire, I could see Harold standing. I could see him seeing me. I stood up, squinting through the flames and said his name aloud. And from where he was an invisible fist slammed into my chest and I was on my back. Something was roaring.

  Water exploded into my fire. I darted out the back door and hid in the yard as the scuffed helmets and heavy jackets dragged a hose through my home, shot water with the force of a cannon, smashed lamps and windows. I watched with the fascination of a child.

  Then they left and I returned to the house. Wet black ash covered the living room and the resin of smoke coated my brain. Now I could remember her. I sat still and let my mind see her. No things, no moments, not even her words. Just her in my head. I remembered until I was too tired to remember anymore.

  I gathered a beach towel and a damp pillow and walked to the corner of the backyard. I asked the kittens if they’d mind the company. I took their silence as approval and slept by their tiny graves. Another night in another graveyard.

  After the fire came boredom. It had been less than a month since I had sat beneath a sky so blue it sang, and I had believed I would never, could never, be bored again. So much to see and so much to think. But boredom came. Dear God, save us from boredom. It is our worst creation.

  What now? What now? What now? What now?

  Some days I’d turn on the shower but not get in. I’d stand there naked and dirty only allowing the steam to touch me. Then they turned off the water because no one had paid the bill. The electricity and phone went too. The house had never been so quiet. No whizzing and whirring, no moving air. At night it was dark. Sometimes it was cold.

  Terry came by, but I wouldn’t answer the door. He’d leave food on the front step. Fast food, greasy and sweet. I never acknowledged his gifts beyond taking them. I knew nothing about what was happening outside my walls. I supposed Harold was dead, or soon would be. That was his plan.

  Once my father visited, a four-hour drive for him. I watched him knocking from the window in Tammy’s room, but I didn’t let him in. After twenty minutes, he turned back to his sedan, climbed in, and drove away. That was the last time I saw him.

  The roaches came. Clicking and scuttling. They abandoned the walls and cupboards and ran fearlessly throughout the house. They scurried over my body when I slept and over my feet as I paced. My home had never been so alive.

  I thought to die. I found my old handgun in the back of the closet. Something I’d bought a decade before for “home protection” and had never fired. But I had bullets. I loaded the gun and put the barrel to my forehead. I pressed hard. Rested a finger on the trigger. I pushed harder, bruising my skin, trying to push the bullet into my brain. But I couldn’t pull the trigger. Couldn’t do it. Not wanting to live is not as strong as wanting to die. Suicide takes courage, motivation. I had neither, so I lived by default. All I had managed to do was give myself a little red circle on my forehead like an empty third eye.

  Went All Names

  One morning, naked on the mattress I had shared with Jennifer, I woke to the sound of knocking. I let it go. Then came a key turn and the squeaking of the front door. I wrapped a blanket around me and crept halfway down the stairs. There in the living room was my mother-in-law staring at the charred couch.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Dear God,” she jumped, giving me the most pleasure I’d had in weeks.

  “How are you?”

  “Better than you. What the hell happened here, Blake?”

  “I’m fine, thanks. Can I get you something?”

  “Why is it so cold in here?” She flipped a switch on the wall and then another and then one more and each time nothing happened. “Your power is out!”

  “Yeah.”

  “And did you know your phone is disconnected?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you live like this?”

  “Actually the majority of humans throughout history have lived like this.”

  “We’re in the midst of a national crisis and you’re doing nothing. Par for the course, Blake. Really.”

  I stared.

  “I came to get some of Jennifer’s things,” she said.

  “Good luck.”

  I sat in my leather recliner with nothing on except my blanket, watching her scoop up frames, blenders, and tiny porcelain statues, like a gerbil scurrying around its cage, gathering pellets from the cedar chips.

  “Where’s the rest of her clothes?” she paused to ask.

  “Fire.”

  “Her photo albums?”

  “Fire.”

  “Did you burn them?”

  “Nope. The fire did.”

&n
bsp; She grunted and continued her scavenging.

  “How’s Tammy?” I asked as she tore past with a box of cookbooks.

  “Tammy is just fine, all things considered.”

  “Please tell her I love her.”

  “Of course,” she said, but I knew she wouldn’t.

  She worked without ceasing for an hour and then left. I missed her as soon as she closed the door. I stayed in the chair for the next hour, and that hour smeared itself into several hours and finally an afternoon. I could hear cars passing, dogs barking, a school bus stopping—all muffled. When the sun had gone and it was dark, I grabbed my box of business cards and walked out to the backyard.

  The lawn was wild. Grass to my shins. The pool was even stranger. It had come to life over the months, changing from dead blue to a brownish green. For years I had kept it dead by adding chemicals and scrubbing the life away. Left alone, it thrived. A new smell, earth and mold. It was the smell I had always associated with death, but in truth it’s the stench of life. Green life floating on top.

  I sat on the ground and watched the thick still water lit by a slice of moon. Crickets and cicadas harmonized their tortured strings. I let the blanket drop and the passing breeze sent goose bumps popping across my body. Beside me lay my business cards. Each one read Blake Waterson in bold, strong letters against a bleached white background. If you ran your finger along the card you could feel the raised letters. They were beautiful. One by one I threw the cards into the pool. They landed on the surface, floating on the scum, then sinking away. As I tossed each card, I said my name. Blake Waterson. Each syllable, each letter, again and again. Blake Waterson Blake Waterson Blake Waterson Blake Waterson Blake Waterson Blake Waterson Blake Waterson Blake Waterson BlakeWaterson BlakeWaterson Blakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewatersonblakewater sonblakewaterson . . .

  The sounds ran into each other and finally meant nothing at all . . .

  By the time the cards were gone, I no longer had a name. And with my name went all names. I looked at the moon and had no word to call it by. The pool, the lawn, the graves, all nameless. All revealed to be meaningless bumps, imperfections on what should be a flat nothing. I saw my hands, my bare legs, but I didn’t know what they were. Just bumps that should not be. I had no words for thought. Just terror. For a moment I was frozen, unable to move. With names went meaning. With meaning went purpose. I was completely free. I was terrified.

  I could have named it all, like Adam in the garden, pointing and naming. But that would be the Fall, the real Fall. Names are lies. Lies are sin. The wages of sin is death.

  Already words were trying to sneak back, crawling over the world like flies. Eternity wanted borders. The sky wanted a frame.

  I fell back and saw the sky, nameless stars. A plane blinked by. I thought the word: plane. And then I was on the plane. I was in the sky with strangers. Flying and flying and flying. The seats and carpet a faded blue—blue—almost sky blue. The engine hummed and I leaned my head against the small window and watched the world pass a hundred miles away. Below me was a nameless man by a living pool. Me above me.

  The engines stopped, nothing left but a soft whistle. We floated down. The sky was silent and so were we. Terror bled into awe. Here was the end, large and wonderful. The plane melted away, and we were all falling together.

  So when someone called out my name, I couldn’t hear them.

  “Blake.”

  I was falling.

  “Blake,” the voice called again. But it was just a noise.

  The ground was an instant away.

  “Blake Waterson.” I looked up, and God was standing in my backyard.

  God

  God, white light buzzing my eyes, and a voice speaking from the light, giving me back my name.

  “Blake. Blake Waterson.”

  I stood, leaving my blanket, and walked towards the light, towards the Unfathomable, the All. I wept.

  “Are you alright?” God said. His voice was a soft woman’s voice. Clear, confident, each word well-pronounced.

  “We were hoping to ask a few questions.” I stopped walking and stared into the light like a dim-witted child gazing at the sun. “You were a follower of Harold Peeks, weren’t you?”

  God had a microphone, God had a camera.

  “Mr. Waterson?” God worked for CNN. “This won’t take long. Just a few moments of your time.”

  And although I realized that this was not God, the awe remained. Standing naked before the omnipotent Creator and standing naked before a world of television viewers is a strikingly similar feeling.

  “Sir, is it true you left his church out of protest?”

  “My wife died.”

  I could not turn away. The light had me.

  “There are many that claim that much of the violence of the last few weeks is linked to religious hyst—”

  “I’m cold.”

  “Chip, give him your jacket.” From the light came clothing. “Many feel that the death of—”

  “Death.” I was not surprised, but still my heart stumbled.

  “Yes,” she paused. “Many feel that despite appearances, it was not an accidental death but—”

  “They’re calling it an accident?”

  “Some claim it was intentional.”

  “It’s what Harold wanted.”

  “So you agree with Bedrick Hobbleton’s parents, that Mr. Peeks was negligent and is partially responsible?”

  “Bedrick?” I lowered myself to the ground.

  “Mr. Waterson?”

  “Beddy.”

  Beddy Is Dead

  Beddy was born in Clarkston, California. His parents divorced when he was six. His father moved to New York. Beddy remained with his mother. He played clarinet in the middle school band. At the age of sixteen he moved to New York and lived with his father. He graduated. He traveled. He never attended college. He tried to teach himself guitar. He fell in love at least twice. He collected a bible. He drove and hitchhiked from California to Texas. He met a man who claimed to be the Son of God. He believed him. Beddy died in Austin, Texas.

  Harold was preaching in downtown Austin, standing in the bed of a pickup truck, sweating and yelling about that splinter of hope. A crowd watched, a separate crowd stood on the fringes with picket signs and wooden crosses. Traffic passed by, drivers honking and yelling. Someone from the crowd threw a rock, smacking Harold in the head. The news footage shows Harold stumble a little, then catch himself, touch the blood on his forehead, and smile. He is about to say something when the camera moves. There’s a scuffle, something is happening, people bump past the camera. You can hear the car’s brakes, the sound of impact, but you can’t see it. Things clear, the camera pushes forward. Beddy is lying in the road. Irma is holding his hand. Behind her is Shael, eyes of a frightened animal. The driver, a young woman, is screaming. In a moment Harold is kneeling beside Beddy’s body.

  Some of the protesters cheer and yell out Bible verses. Harold stays very still. He touches Beddy’s face. Blood on his fingers. Blood is everywhere. Harold’s mouth is moving, but the camera doesn’t pick up any of his words.

  And there’s Beddy, not moving, not breathing. Harold stands. He steps onto the hood of the car that had hit Beddy. Harold raises a foot and with two stomps smashes the windshield in. He turns. No one moves. Even the protestors shut up.

  “Judgment is coming,” he says in a hoarse voice. “But it will be too late. You’ll be dead. You won’t even notice.” He stares at them all, dangerous eyes. “Don’t have any more babies.”

  He steps off the hood and walks away.

  Martyr

  In Harold Be Thy Name, Beddy pushes a child out of the way of a speeding car and is killed in the process. The child belongs to a redneck woman
with a picket sign reading, “Jesus is God’s ONLY Son!!!”

  There was no child. There was a brief fight, a few pushes. Beddy stepped off the sidewalk at the wrong moment.

  What’s sad, what knocked Harold out of himself, was that Beddy died for nothing. It was an accident. Pointless. Like a machine breaking. Something changed in Harold. You can see it in the footage, hear it in his words after that day. God had screwed up the story, had killed the wrong person. How could he forgive God for that? Harold’s sermons grew sterner. He still spoke of hope, still promised God, but if you were listening you’d notice he never again publicly mentioned the word love. A new doubt edged everything he said. He believed in God, he just didn’t trust Him. Eventually, I suppose, all children learn to stop trusting their parents. “I do not know! I do not know!” became his chorus. “The Doubting Messiah,” they called him. It was exactly what the world needed. Jesus came to save all those that believe. Harold came for the rest of us.

  Don’t Have Any More Babies

  Harold had been news before Beddy’s death. While I was playing hermit, Terry and others had been busy. People all over the country were blogging, twittering, searching Harold Peeks. Hundreds were already swarming to Austin to get a closer look. But it was Beddy’s death that made Harold a superstar. His passion was caught on camera. A blurry cell phone video of Beddy’s death and Harold’s reaction was on the Internet before the body was cold. There were articles, photos. One photo became a classic. Harold kneeling by the body, looking as distraught and as righteously confused as any Old Testament prophet. When it first ran in the New York Times it had the caption, “Don’t have any more babies.”

  An Introduction to Haroldism

  “Don’t Have Any More Babies.”